by Ann Turnbull
The tears spilled over again, and I brushed them away. “I made such a fool of myself. I shall never be able to meet those people again…” I raised my head and looked at him directly. “Nat, Will is in love with someone else.”
“I don’t think so.”
He sounded so certain that my hopes were raised. But then he had not seen Will lately.
“There is a girl there,” I said. “A daughter, I suppose?”
He nodded. “I believe there are several daughters.”
“They were playing music on one of those keyboard instruments: a virginal, or harpsichord. He didn’t see me at first.” My throat was closing up; it was hard to talk. “They were looking into each other’s eyes and laughing together.”
Nat allowed the kitten to climb onto his knee. “It’s not a crime to laugh,” he said. “I do it myself, quite often.”
“Don’t mock me.”
“I didn’t mean to.” The kitten moved between the two of us, purring. “I know he loves thee, Su. All this plague-time he has been desperate to go to thee.”
“But thou knew something. Thou tried to warn me.”
“Only because of the house. They are such fine folk, and live in grand style. It’s a house that makes me feel out of place.”
“But not Will. He’s not out of place there. He belongs.”
“Aye – he’s settled in easily enough.” He gave a little shrug and a rueful smile, and I wondered if he too felt rejected. He and Will had shared life and lodgings since they arrived in London together, but now, it seemed, a separation had come about.
“If it hadn’t been for me,” I said, “he’d have been living in a house like that these last three years. He’d expect to marry a girl like her.”
“Su, he chose thee, and a different way—”
At that moment there was a knock on the door and Will’s voice, raised and urgent, called out, “Nat? Art thou home?”
I sprang up. “I can’t see him!”
But he was already in the room. His gaze alighted on me at once, and I saw relief flood his face. “Thank God!” he said.
“I must go.” I had begun to tremble. “I’ll be missed at the inn.”
But he stood in my way, his face full of hurt and bewilderment. “Thou can’t go! Talk to me, Susanna! It’s been three years. I’ve worked and waited for thee. Thou can’t refuse me even a word.”
His voice had grown louder and I quailed before him.
Nat intervened. “Will, she’s distressed. No good will come of this. You can talk tomorrow. Let her go now.”
“And run out into the night again? Alone?”
“I’ll walk with her.”
They faced each other, and I felt caught between them. Will – hot, angry and thwarted – at last backed down.
He turned to me. “Will thou see me tomorrow?”
I nodded.
“Where is the inn?”
Nat replied, “Martin’s Lane. The Three Tuns.”
“I know it.” He approached the door, then looked back at me, his eyes pleading. “Goodnight, Su.”
Nat and I left soon after he had gone. I was subdued now, and felt an extraordinary tiredness sweeping over me. Nat delivered me safely to the inn door. Alice tactfully asked no questions, but I saw that she was concerned at my appearance. I went to the mirror and looked at my face. It was blotched pink, with swollen eyelids. Yet only a short time ago I’d been teasing out tendrils of hair, eager to appear at my best for Will. I thought about how he’d looked when he turned back to bid me goodnight. His was the face I’d carried in my heart and memory all this time, and had longed to see. I love him, I thought; but my mother was right: long ago she’d said to me, “He’s not for thee, Susanna.” I saw now that he had always been destined for someone like Edmund Ramsey’s daughter.
My eyes were heavy. Alice ordered us a light supper in our room, but I scarcely touched the food. I went to bed early. All I wanted was to sleep.
It was as well I did sleep, for he came soon after six next morning. I was already dressed and sitting with Alice in silent prayer when a knock came on the chamber door and a serving girl told me there was a young man asking for me.
I followed the gleam of her candle as she led the way downstairs and into the main room of the inn. This too was lit with candles, for it was still dark outside. Several tables and benches were full with people eating breakfast. A fire of logs blazed and crackled in the hearth, and a party of newly arrived travellers stood around it, red-faced from the cold and blowing on their hands.
Will was sitting alone at a small table near a window, wrapped in a dark cloak and wearing a plain black hat. He rose at once to greet me.
“Susanna! It’s early – I’m sorry – I could not wait…”
He reached instinctively towards me, and I knew that if we had not been in a public place all my resolve would have left me and I would have moved straight into his arms.
“Come. Sit down,” he said.
The girl hovered. “Will you take breakfast, sir? We have an excellent pottage.” She was looking at him with interest; he had those dark, lean looks that many girls like. And I thought of the Ramsey daughter.
We both declined the pottage, and asked for beer and bread. I sat down, determined not to be swayed from the decision I had made on waking. I looked directly at him and said, with difficulty, “Will, I release thee from thy promise to me. Thou need not feel bound by it.”
He looked bewildered. “But I wish to feel bound! There are difficulties – I wrote to thee, but thou won’t have had the letter…”
“Thou lov’st that girl – the musician.”
“No!”
Other people looked round at us, and he continued in a low, intense voice, “Catherine is fond of music, as I am. I enjoy her company, but it’s thee I love, Susanna.”
Catherine. So that was her name. In my memory I saw them again: laughing, catching each other’s eyes; saw their shared joy in the music. Perhaps he had not yet acknowledged it in his heart, but…
“Thou belong there, Will; can’t thou see it? Those people, with their books and music, their wealth, their connections. I saw thee there, and my eyes were opened. I saw that I should never have come. Thou did not expect me, nor send for me—”
“Only because the time was not right!”
His voice had risen again. The girl arrived with the bread and beer, and her glance took in our quarrel as she set the food out on the table.
When she had gone, Will reached for my hand, but I withdrew it.
“Su, what you saw was nothing – nothing! I have never been alone with Catherine; I am not courting her; thou wrong’st her to think so. I have scarcely spoken to her of anything except music.”
“But thou lov’st the music! I could see that. It shone in thy face. And with me, thou would lose it. I come of plain, sober folk. I have grown up without music. To me, it seems – not ungodly, but … frivolous.”
“It is frivolous indeed compared with my promise to thee.” And he looked at me with such hurt and longing that I was almost persuaded.
But I had made my decision. “I shall go back to Shropshire,” I said, “and set thee free.”
Our bread lay uneaten on the table. The newly arrived travellers settled near by and were served with bowls of steaming mutton pottage. They talked loudly, forcing Will to lean towards me as he tried to speak. I drew back, but he seized my hand and held it firmly.
“There is only one impediment to our marriage,” he said, “and that is my lack of work and prospects. James Martell and all his family died of the plague.”
I felt shock. I had not known this. “I am sorry, Will.”
“Edmund Ramsey cared for me when I was ill and has given me employment, though it is temporary. That is the only reason I remain there. They are good people, Su, newly become Friends. I wish thou would meet them—”
“No!” The memory of my shaming flight from their house rose before me. “No, don’t ask me to face
them again. I shall go home. There is no place for me here.”
William
I walked back to Throgmorton Street in despair that I had been unable to reach her, to make things right between us. What had happened to our love that we had nurtured through three years of letter-writing: talking of books, of religion, of places, Friends and friends, our ideas and dreams of life together?
Now that I had seen and spoken to her again I had no doubt that I wanted Susanna as my wife. For the first time, this morning, I’d had a chance to look at her and see how she had matured and changed since I’d seen her last. Her face, framed in the plain cap of unbleached linen, had lost some of its childish plumpness but none of its fair colour, so appealing in London where people mostly look pinched and pale. Her dark eyes and her voice with its soft country burr were as beautiful as I remembered them.
We loved each other. We belonged together. How could she think I’d prefer Catherine Ramsey?
It was true – more true than I’d admitted to Susanna – that I had felt drawn to Catherine, and not only because of our mutual love of music. She was there, in the house, a pretty girl who enjoyed and sought out my company. But she was also a virtuous girl, who had done nothing wrong. I reflected bitterly, self-pityingly, as I trudged back through the cold dawn streets, that I had stayed true to Susanna for three years, as I’d promised her; I had not had any other girl, nor gone whoring as many young men do. I did not deserve her censure. She wronged me; and wronged Catherine.
The Ramseys did not ask questions, but they knew something was amiss. That afternoon there was no virginal-playing, and I noticed that the music books had been put away.
Dorothy, the youngest girl, regarded me solemnly. “Thy Friend was shocked, I think.”
“No, not shocked. But she – she felt unable to stay.”
I guessed that Catherine – indeed, all the women in the household except Dorothy – had grasped the situation exactly.
“Is she thy sweetheart?” the child asked.
“Dorothy!” warned Jane.
Clearly they had been told not to talk about my visitor.
Catherine was quiet and avoided my eye. A constraint had come between us, and I suspected that she felt overcome with guilt, as I did. I feared also that she was disappointed – that she had more fondness for me than I’d realized, and was hurt. I knew I must be careful, now, to protect her honour.
I considered leaving Edmund’s house at once and returning to Creed Lane. But that would imply that something had happened between me and Catherine, which it had not. So I stayed, and nobody mentioned Susanna, and over the next few days the atmosphere in the house returned to normal and I sometimes heard the virginal again in the afternoons. I spent most of my time in the library, hard at work. The cataloguing would soon be finished, and then I would leave.
On seventh-day, in the evening, I went to see Nat.
“Hast thou seen Susanna again?” I asked him.
“No.” He looked at me warily. “You didn’t kiss and make up, then?”
“No. We did not.” I would not talk to him about our troubles, but added, “She said she’d go home.”
“I doubt she’d go till the other Friends leave,” said Nat. “Perhaps she’ll be at the Bull and Mouth meeting tomorrow.”
I thought about going to that meeting, where I could encounter her as if by chance. But what could we say to each other in company, even supposing she wished to speak to me?
She would not want me haunting her. I went with Edmund to Gracechurch Street instead.
Susanna
I did not go home. When I tried to imagine myself doing so I realized that I had nowhere to go – except back to Long Aston, and I didn’t want that. I had ended my employment with Mary and had no place any more in her house. I thought, too, how humiliating it would be, to return to Hemsbury without Will; how I’d have to explain to Mary, to the Mintons, to Em; and be pitied by everyone.
So I told myself. No doubt there was a glimmer of hope there also, but I did not admit that.
I was certain I should not hold Will to his promise. He was with people of his own kind now, and I had seen how easily he consorted with them, and realized that he might soon begin to prosper again if he was not held back by me. I thought, too, how those people must have seen me – especially that fair, blue-eyed girl with her quicksilver hands. I’d stood there, dumbstruck, in my heavy shoes and plain hood and hat – a country girl whose hands were red and roughened from work. Of course the Ramsey girls were Friends, but as different from me as swans are from chickens.
I would give him his freedom, I decided. But I did not leave London.
The Shropshire Friends I had travelled with planned to leave in December – well before the shortest day and the feast of Christmas. That gave them some two or three weeks to visit London Friends and meetings. Some went to stay with relations or Friends they already knew; those few of us remaining were to be taken in by members of the local meetings.
On the first-day following our arrival, Alice and I went to the meeting at the Bull and Mouth tavern in Aldersgate. I knew this was the meeting Will and Nat usually attended. Nat was there, but not Will; and despite my resolution I felt disappointed. I was too proud to ask after him. He’d be with the Ramseys, I supposed, at some other meeting, or at their home; and the worm of jealousy, which I knew should have no place in my heart, twisted within me, and prevented me from reaching the light.
After the meeting, when we talked with Friends, I was approached by a thin, pale young woman with sombre dark eyes. Her name was Rachel Chaney, and she offered me lodgings at her home.
“It would please me if thou would stay in my house while thou’rt in London,” she said. “I am alone except for my young child. My husband is on a prison ship – condemned to be transported…”
“The Black Spread-Eagle?” I said.
“Thou hast heard of it?”
“Yes. And have been praying, in Hemsbury Meeting, for thy husband and the other prisoners.” I understood now why she looked so wan. “I should be glad to stay with thee.”
She smiled then, and the smile brightened and changed her face. “Come tonight,” she said. “I live in Foster Lane, above the silversmith’s workshop. It’s near here. Thy friend Nat will show thee.”
Nat came to the Three Tuns that evening and took me to Rachel’s house. Alice had already gone to stay with a widow named Jane Catlin, who lived near by.
Foster Lane was only a short walk from the inn. It was a narrow lane, darkened by the jettied storeys that almost met overhead, so that on this winter evening we could see almost nothing except where an occasional household lantern cast a pool of light. I feared what I might be treading in, and stepped cautiously. The silversmith’s shop was locked and shuttered, and entry to the house was by an even narrower passage between two shops which led to the back doors.
Rachel greeted us and invited us both in. Nat set down my bag while I looked around at the small kitchen, which was lit by tapers. There was a table criss-crossed with knife cuts, pewter plates on a rack, bunches of herbs hanging from the limewashed ceiling, and a baby’s linen cloths drying on a guard by the fire. In one corner, safe behind a makeshift barrier, was the baby: a little girl less than two years old who reached up her arms to Nat and said, “Dadda!”
Nat shook his head and laughed, as did we all; and Rachel scooped up the child and kissed her and said, “She calls every man Dadda! I wish thou might see thy dadda soon, my poppet.” She turned to me. “This is Tabitha. She was eleven months old when her father was sent to Newgate. I fear she will forget him, so I talk about him to her all the time. Nat, will thou take beer with us? I have bread and some cold mutton too.”
But Nat said no; he’d leave us to talk. And he wished us goodnight and blew a kiss to Tabitha, which made her laugh; and then Rachel picked up a lighted taper and led me upstairs – she with the child on her hip, I with my bag.
There were two more rooms, both small, and one ab
ove the other, linked by steep, narrow stairs. Above the kitchen was a parlour, and above that a bedroom with a four-poster bed hung with thick drapes, a washstand, a child’s cot, and a chest of a fashion I had not seen before, with drawers in it.
I set down my bag here, and went to the window to look out. There was no view, for the upper storey of the house opposite was almost close enough to touch. Someone with a candle was moving within.
Rachel said, “In summer, when the windows are open, we wave to Goody Prior, don’t we, Tabby?”
We went downstairs to eat. I noticed that the fire was not lit in the parlour and guessed that Rachel was saving fuel by not using that room. It must be many months since she’d had her husband’s income. In the tiny kitchen I amused Tabitha with a toy dog on wheels while Rachel mixed some gruel for the child, then cut up meat and bread and brought out a jar of pickled vegetables, and set the table.
“I’m glad thou could come,” she said. “My mother wants me to go and stay with her, back home in Houndsditch; she says I should not be on my own. But I don’t want to go back there. I got married in part to get away from home! Sit down, Susanna, and eat.”
She took Tabitha on her lap and began spooning gruel into the child’s mouth. Tabitha struggled to seize the spoon herself, flicking gruel around, and then became more interested in what was on her mother’s plate.
We tried to talk, but our conversation was broken by the child, who demanded attention. After supper she grew sleepy and her head lolled on Rachel’s shoulder.
“I’ll put her to bed,” Rachel whispered, and crept upstairs with the little girl, whose face and hair were sticky with gruel.
She came down alone and said she would light the fire in the parlour, but I persuaded her not to. “It’s warm here, by this fire.”
“I try to save money,” she said. “The meeting helps. Friends have been good to me.”
I asked, tentatively, “What news of the Black Spread-Eagle?”
